Tags
DADT, Facebook, foreign policy, Fox News, global warming, Individual Rights, Julian Assange, Kyl, Mark Zuckerberg, Media, START treaty, tax bill, Time's person of the year, wackos, wikileaks
I know. I said yesterday that I had no opinion on Wikileaks. I still don’t. But I’m starting to lean. Like the Tower of Pisa, if I tip too far, it is inevitable that I will topple over.
Why am I leaning?
Because more and more this is starting to resemble the aftermath of 9/11. Remember when Congress was declaring for “Freedom Fries” and everybody was stumbling over each other to be more patriotic than the next gal?
Remember the upshot of that: the Patriot Act? Where we pretty much handed over our rights to the government to ignore them any time it chose in the name of “national security” and protecting the “homeland.” The name alone was reason enough to vote against it. But I think one person did. Everybody was afraid to be on the “wrong” side and not be a patriot.
Today, people are starting to fall all over each other to be on the right side of the Wikileaks affair. We are hearing calls for assassination of Julian Assange, new laws to make him a terrorist, and of course the usual chorus from the right–censor the news and if necessary prosecute! Meanwhile corporate entities who provide financial mechanisms to support Wikileaks are closing their doors. No doubt corporate America may have concerns itself over what may come out about them and government shenanigans.
” . . . I think that we also should be censoring the American news agencies which enabled him to do this and also supported him and applauding him [Julian Assenge] for the efforts. So that’s kind of aiding and abetting of a serious crime.” (quoted from Allen West, newly elected Rep. from Fl.)
Once one of these snowballs starts, they usually end up in a bad result. And then we all feel “safe” and everyone moves on to the next “crisis”. Except the laws remain and are ready to be used by exactly the sort of people we don’t want messing with our rights–the extreme right. With one foot now in the door, and salivating at the prospects of 2012, this is no meaningless concern.
Imagine (if you can stomach it) the power to censor the press in the hands of one Sarah, who is already on record as declaring that all media are lame, except for her Foxy supporters. Imagine. That’s an Imagine not the likes that John Lennon had in mind.
So, as I said, I’m leaning.
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I’m thinking that Time, in making its decisions about who they will name “person of the year” is now rending it a contest sent out to high schools across America. Recall the “mirror” one? Well, in their INFINITE wisdom, infinitely small that is, they have chosen Mark Zuckerberg, the kid who started Facebook.
While no biggie, it seems that this is the best they could come up with? It just seems a lazy choice. Zuckerberg and his creation are of no serious import in the world it seems to me. While I laud his offering of much of his wealth to cure societal ills, well, what is new about that?
Who would you have liked to see get the nod?
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Here are some things I read late yesterday without linkage:
- Rush Limpaugh has taken to calling the First Lady, Michelle the Butt. Each time, he corrects himself to Michelle La Belle, but he’s don’t it in excess of six times and it’s clear it is deliberate. Rush has a thing for demeaning women, once claiming that Hillary Clinton couldn’t join the armed services because they didn’t have combat boots large enough to get over her thick ankles. Rush is a piece of crap.
- Somebody somewhere found a new planet and it’s very carbon rich, raising the possibility that it is full of diamonds. That should make Kays and Zales and all the rest giddy with anticipation!
- Romney is against the parts of the tax bill that give aid to the unemployed and so forth because their raise the deficit by a few billion. But he is inexplicably for the parts that give tax cuts to the rich, when that deficit, over 10 years, figures to be in the trillions. Another case of assuming your base is too stupid to understand.
- The House is re-introducing a new DADT bill, alone. That allows the Senate to try again. We may just make it! That is, if we can explain to Sen. Manchin that his concerns were addressed by the Joint Chiefs and the report that emanated from the Pentagon. He’s new, he didn’t know any better.
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You know when the GOP claimed it wouldn’t do a thing unless they got their precious rich people their tax break? Well, on the verge of getting it, they are (didn’t we know they would) still balking at doing a thing. And some of so darn angry at giving the Dems even a tiny benefit, they are willing to screw everyone.
Kyl, the other dingbat from Arizona, is claiming that Reid is “disrespecting” the Holiest of celebrations for Christians by threatening to keep the Senate in session over the holidays. DeMint is threatening to have the entire START Treaty read aloud, wasting a good day, in order to screw that up. And Colburn is threatening to do the same with appropriations bill.
What part of compromise don’t these people get? They will destroy America before they will stop this petulant game of politics first. Never in my life have I seem a group who has less concern with the public good than this bunch of asshats.
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Foxy lies continue to be unearthed. Just last week or so, memos came to light that Fox had directed it’s reporters and commentators to use the term “government option” rather than public option in regards the health care bill because the former didn’t poll well. Now we see that Fox employees were ordered to not report anything about this being the “warmest decade” on record without “immediately” citing that there is data claiming this is untrue.
…we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.
The directive, sent by Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon, was issued less than 15 minutes after Fox correspondent Wendell Goler accurately reported on-air that the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was “on track to be the warmest [decade] on record.”
What’s on the stove: homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Stay Warm!
Existential Ennui 